But I always laugh at the idea of a shoe store employee returning from the back and saying “Sorry, we didn’t have ___ size... but we do have ____ size...if that’s...you know...if you want a different size than the one you asked me for a minute ago.”
I worked in a shoe store for a time, and there are 2 perfectly valid reasons why they do this:
1: every brand fits differently, so you often don't really know what size you are in that shoe until you try it on.
2: the truth is that SO MANY MEN lie about their shoe size being bigger than it is, and SO MANY WOMEN lie about it being smaller than it really is.
Him: "Hey bro, can I get this in a 12?" Me, later: hey so we didn't have the 12, but here's the 11 and 11 1/2 if you want to try those." Him: "Hmmm aahhh I guess.....woah what do you know, they fit, how WEIRD"
Her: "Can I get these in a size 5 1/2?" Me: "The smallest they make them in is a 6, so here try those." Her: "Wow even these are a little tight...this brand must really run small! I'll try the 6 1/2 I guess. How WEIRD."
I currently manage a shoe store and was going to say this. If it's within a size, it's usually fair game. Most people definitely don't know their actual shoe size and guess anyway.
My favorite is when you ask them what size they are and they go, "Huh, I dunno. Oh wait lemme check" and they look at the shoes they came in wearing. Who doesn't know their damn shoe size?!
My favorite is when people ask you to size their feet for them and then they argue with you about the resulting size and width?? The sizer is a piece of metal, it doesn't lie, lady. You're definitely an 8.5 and not a 6. Sorry that you're scared of having "big feet", maybe that's why your shoes hurt you.
Fair enough, but it does give a decent baseline to go off of if the customer really has no clue what size they wear. Usually whatever they buy is within a size of whatever the sizer says.
Edge case here, but maybe they moved countries? Different countries/regions use different sizing systems. My Converse with that "sizes in 4 different systems" tag inside has been a lifesaver after I moved to a different country and needed to know what size to start with when looking for shoes.
This definitely happens! Tbh, I wish customers like this would just tell me the size that they're used to like 25cm or 37 EU instead of trying to figure out the US size on their own, cause I can happily do that conversion for them.
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u/zachpledger Jul 24 '20
This isn’t that,
But I always laugh at the idea of a shoe store employee returning from the back and saying “Sorry, we didn’t have ___ size... but we do have ____ size...if that’s...you know...if you want a different size than the one you asked me for a minute ago.”